Saturday, 14 May 2016

Boris The Pantomime Horse

Boris Johnsonhas been accused by the grandson of
Winston Churchill – the Tory MP Nicholas Soames – of “fundamentally dishonest
gymnastics” for criticising a planned multibillion pound EU-US trade deal which
he previously lauded as “Churchillian” for its brilliance.

Soames, the MP for mid-Sussex,
said Johnson’s spectacular about-turn on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP) was yet more evidence of his “complete lack of credibility
and coherence” in arguing the economic case for Brexit.

The former mayor of London, a
leading light in the Vote Leave campaign, wrote in his Daily Telegraph column
in October 2014 that TTIP was a “great project” adding:

“It is Churchillian, in
that it builds transatlantic links; it is all about free trade; and it brings
Britain andEuropecloser
to America.

“The idea is to create a gigantic free-trade zone between the EU and
the US, or a TTIP – a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.”

He went on:

“There is absolutely
nothing not to like about theTTIP. As Churchill might have said, it is
altogether un-sordid.

“And yet virtually the only commentary we have been
offered is absurdly hostile and misinformed. The debate is dominated by
Left-wing misery-guts anti-globalisation campaigners.”

Johnson also emphatically
rejected any idea in his Telegraph piece that the free trade deal could
threaten the NHS by leaving it open to competition from US firms, a view now
taken by the Vote Leave campaign.

“If we get the TTIP agreed, it will
certainly not mean the privatisation of the NHS, and nor will it mean a green
light for fracking Sussex.

“At the very most it will mean that there is some
protection against government deciding – locally, at state level, or nationally
– to legislate in some arbitrary and unexpected way so as to discriminate
against foreign companies.

“That strikes me as a very useful
thing for British companies, both large and small.

“This new free-trade pact
with America is not a threat: it is a sensational opportunity to break down the
remaining barriers to trade with the country that already takes 17% of our
exports – the biggest single export destination for Britain.”

But this week in a speech backing
Brexit, Johnson changed his tune completely, likening the EU’s role in the
ongoing TTIP talks to a “pantomime horse” in which the 28 member nations tried,
chaotically, to agree a joint position on venture that was preventing the UK
from striking its own, quicker and more effective bilateral trade deals.

The speech by Johnson, who has
written a biography of Churchill, lampooned the entire TTIP process:

“As for
the argument that we need the muscle of EU membership, if we are to do trade
deals – well, look, as I say, at the results after 42 years of membership.

“The
EU has done trade deals with the Palestinian authority and San Marino. Bravo.
But it has failed to conclude agreements with India, China or even America.

“Why? Because negotiating on behalf
of the EU is like trying to ride a vast pantomime horse, with 28 people blindly
pulling in different directions.

“For decades deals with America have
been blocked by the French film industry, and the current TTIP negotiations are
stalled at least partly because Greek feta cheese manufacturers object to the
concept of American feta.

“They may be right, aesthetically, but it should not
be delaying us in this country.”

Soames told the Observer that
Johnson’s about-turn was astonishing but unsurprising.

“This is typical of
Boris’s now regular inconsistencies in praising TTIP transatlantic deal as
Churchillian a mere 18 months ago, and now having jumped ship apparently
changing his mind yet again,” he said.

“It is another example of Boris’s
complete lack of credibility and coherence on this very important transaction.
People will simply not understand this fundamentally dishonest gymnastics.”

Former president of the Board of
Trade Michael Heseltine also weighed in, saying that while people loved Boris
for his jokes, “consistency somehow eludes him”.

Heseltine added: “Only recently the
TTIP was an economic miracle of Churchillian proportions. Today it is buried in
the rhetoric of people determined to make an economic case for Brexit.”

Vote Leave confirmed that it was now officially opposed
to TTIP because the UK should be doing its own trade deals, rather than having
them negotiated on its behalf by the EU, and because it threatened the NHS.

Former foreign secretary David
Owen, a supporter of Brexit, has taken the lead in warning that TTIP is a
danger to the NHS.

Owen said: “We are agreed in Vote Leave, that whatever our
political views on the present marketisation of the NHS, decisions on the NHS
should for the future be for the UK parliament and devolved administrations to
take. It should not be for the European commission nor the European
parliament.”

Johnson’s apparent U-turn on TTIP
came under attack as he joined fellow leading campaigners at events across the
country in the biggest day yet for theEU referendumcampaign.

David Cameron and Jeremy
Corbyn both appeared at separate rallies for the remain camp on Saturday.

The prime minister, who was
unveiling a campaign poster in his Oxfordshire constituency of Witney, said
leaving the EU would cost UK households £4,300 each and withdraw billions of
pounds in funding for infrastructure projects.

“I am absolutely convinced that
our economic security will be better if we stay in a reformedEuropean
Unionand it will be
seriously at risk if we were to leave,” he said.

“If we vote to leave on 23
June we will be voting for higher prices, we will be voting for fewer jobs, we
will be voting for lower growth, we will be voting potentially for a recession.

“That is the last thing our economy needs.”

Meanwhile, at a rally in London,
Corbyn said the Tory government – rather than Brussels – was to blame for the
“many problems” facing Britain.

“There is so much more theEuropean
Unioncould be doing
if we had a government making the right choices and with the right priorities,”
he said.

“People in this country face many
problems: from insecure jobs, low pay and unaffordable housing to stagnating
living standards and environmental degradation, and the responsibility for them
lies in 10 Downing Street, not in Brussels.

“The Tories and Ukip are on
record as saying they would like to cut back our workplace rights and many
unscrupulous employers would have our rights at work off us if they had the
chance.”